;i8 



NATURE 



[AuGCJST r, 1895 



thus the prixlucls of their activity must issue through evolutionary 

 processes ; what they will become after millions of generations 

 must be determined so soon as these " idioblasts " combine as 

 the first cell. If, however, we are to assume that the hereditary- 

 qualities of " idioblasts "' can be eliminated by environment — as 

 we must assume if we attempt to combine evolution with 

 epigenesis — I reply, as in my earlier proposition, we have no 

 need for " idioblasts" or any other " hereditary unit." All we 

 then need for a theor)' of heredity is some plastic primordium 

 and environment. Then, as such primordium would have no 

 hereditary predisposition, there would be no room for pre- 

 determinism, and it would remain for ingenious theorists in love 

 with epigenesis and the tape-measure system of estimating the 

 cosmos, to explain the persistence of types under variable 

 environment, and the differentiation of types under identical 

 en\nronment. 



I can appreciate the eagerness of the " mechanical school" to 

 welcome any loophole of escape from predeterminism. A 

 genuine epigenetic theor)' is, no doubt, their great desideratum. 

 If they " won't be happy till they get it," I venture to predict 

 that they are doomed to a lengthened spell of dumps ! The 

 main issue raised by Hertwig in " The Cell," is : evolution or 

 epigenesis ? He tries to accept both, basing epigenesis on evolu- 

 tion. Thereby, in my opinion, he stultifies lK>th doctrines. 

 All biologists, so far as I am aware, start their theories from the 

 l>asis of differentiated units. Equally they all evade the attempt 

 to account for the differentiation. This omission I have en- 

 deavoured to rectify in "Rhythmic Heredity " (Williams and 

 Norgate). H. Croi-t Hii.ler. 



A Sound-producing Insect. 



In your issue of June 13, Mr. S. E. I'eal speaks of a lepi- 

 dopterous insect in .-Vssam which makes a tapping noise when 

 flying. His description so closely resembles an insect in 

 Gorakhpur, that I think it must be identical or closely allied. 



The alar expanse is alK>ut three inches. The wings are broad, 

 not indented, of a very dark chocolate-brown colour on both 

 sides, with one small yellowish-brown blotch on the costa of 

 fore-wing on upper surface. The body is thin, like a butterfly, 

 but the antenna.- are not clubbed. It is apparently a (leometer 

 or slender-lxxlied Bombyx. 1 It flies in the darkest parts of woods, 

 just as twilight is settling into night, and is very hard to see 

 when standing up. By lying down, so as to get the sky as a 

 Ijackground, it is c-asily visible. It cannot be netted in the 

 ordinary way, as the eye cannot follow it, but by standing still 

 till one is heard near, and then striking in the direction of the 

 sound, one may sometimes be successful. I first succeeded in 

 striking one down with my " solah topi" ; afterwards I netted 

 two, and brought them home alive, to see how the noise was made. 

 The sound is a sort of clicking, which may Ite fairly imitated by 

 striking the nails of the thumb and fore-finger together. Krom 

 the thorax, lx.'tween the bases of the wings, a stiff bristle (like a 

 pig's) projects almut a quarter of an inch. The noise is made by 

 this bristle catching in the hind-margin of the fore-wings and the 

 costal margin of the hind-w ings. I fancy it must be of a warning 

 character, as if the insect is eatable, it would help to enable bats 

 and birds to find it. I think I have noticed that the insect is 

 attracted by imitating the clicking sound with the nails, but 

 could not .satisfy myself on this point. I. K. Molt. 



A FEW MORE WORDS ON THOMAS HENRY 

 HUXLEY. 



'T^WO scenes in Huxley's life stand out clear and 

 •^ full of meaning, amid my recollections of him, 

 reaching now some forty years back. Itoth took place 

 at Oxford, both at meetings of the IJritish Association. 

 The first, few witnesses of which now remain, was 

 the memorable discussion on Darwin in l8to. The room 

 was < rowdrd though it was a .Saturday, and the meeting 

 was excited. The ISishop had spoken ; cheered loudly from 

 lime to lime during his speech, he sat down amid tumul- 

 tuous applause, ladies waving their handkerchiefs with 

 great enthusiastti ; and in almost dead silence, broken 

 merely by greetings whirh, coming only from the few 

 who knew, seemed as nothing, Huxley, then well- 

 nigh unknown outside the narrow circle of scientific 



NO. 1344, VOL. 52] 



workers, began his reply. A cheer, chiefly from a knot of 

 young men in the audience, hearty but seeming scant 

 through the fewness of those who gave it, and almost 

 angrily resented by some, welcomed the first point made. 

 Then as, slowly and nieasuredly at first, more quickly and 

 with more vigour later, stroke followed stroke, the circle 

 of cheers grew wider and yet wider, until the speaker's 

 last words were crowned with an applause falling not far 

 short of, indeed equalling, that w hich had gone before, an 

 applause hearty and genuine in its recognition that a 

 strong man had arisen among the biologists of England. 



The second scene, that of 1894, is still fresh in the 

 minds of all. \o one who was present is likely to forget 

 how, when Huxley rose to second the vote of thanks for the 

 presidential address, the whole house burst into a cheer- 

 ing such as had never before been witnessed on any like 

 occasion, a cheering which said, as plainly as such things- 

 can say: "This is the faithful servant who has laboured, 

 for more than half a century on behalf of science with his 

 face set firmly towards truth, and we want him to know 

 that his labours have not been in vain." Nor is any one 

 likely to forget the few carefully chosen, wise, pregnant 

 words which fell from him when the applause died away. 

 Those two speeches, the one long and polemical, the 

 other brief and judicial, show, taken together, many of the 

 qualities which made Huxley great and strong. 



.Among those qualities perhaps the most dominant, 

 certainly the most cfifective as regards his influence on 

 the world, were on the one hand an alertness, a quick- 

 ness of apprehension, and a clear way of thinking, whirh, 

 in dealing with a problem, made him dissatisfied with 

 any solution incapable of rigid proof and incisive ex- 

 pression, he seemctl always to go alxiut with a halo of 

 clear light inimediately around him ; and, on the other 

 hand, that power of foreseeing future consequences of 

 immediate action which forms the greater part of 

 what we call sagacity. The former gave him his 

 notable dialectic skill, and mark all his contributions 

 to scientific literature : the latter made him, in addi- 

 tion, an able administrator and a wise counsellor, both 

 within the tents of science and beyond. These at 

 least were his dominant intellectual qualities ; but even 

 more powerful were the qualities in him which though 

 allied, we distinguish as moral ; and perhaps the greater 

 part of his influence over his fellows was due to the fact 

 that ever)- one who met him saw in him a man bent on 

 following the true and doing the right, swerving aside 

 no tittle, either for the sake of reward or for fear of the 

 enemy, a man whose uttered scorn of what was mean and 

 cowardly was but the reciprocal of his inward lo\e of 

 nobleness and courage. 



Hearing in mind his possession of these general 

 qualities, we may find the key to the influence exerted by 

 him on biological science in what he says of himself in his 

 all too short autobiograi)hic sketch, n.imely, that tlie bent 

 of his mind was towards mechanical problems, and that 

 it was the force of circumstances which, frasirating his 

 boyish wish to be a mechanical engineer, brought him to 

 the medical profession. Probably the boyish wish was 

 merely the natural outcome of an early feeling that the 

 solution of mechanical problems was congenial to the clear 

 decisive way of thinking, to which I referred above, and 

 which was obviously present even in the boy ; and that it 

 was not the subject-matter of mechanical problems, but the 

 inodc of Heating them which interested him, is shown by 

 the incident recorded by himself, how when he was a mere 

 boy a too zealous attention to a ])osl-mortem examination 

 cost him a long illness. It is clear that the call to solve 

 biologic problems came to him early ; it is also clear 

 that the call was a real one : and, as he himself has said, 

 he recognised his calling when, after some years of 

 desultory reading and lonely irregular mental activity, he 

 came under the influence of Wharton Jones at Charing 

 Cross Hospital. That made him .1 biologist, but con- 



